PREACHED BEFORE THE 


FOREIGN EVANGELICAL SOCIETY, 


NEW YORK, MAY 4, 1845. 


J 









( 


CHRISTIAN UNITY. 


A 

SERMON, 

PREACHED BEFORE THE 

FOREIGN EVANGELICAL SOCIETY, 

IN THE 

BLEEKER STREET CHURCH, 

NEW YORK, MAY 4, 1845. 

BY 

LEONARD BACON, 

Pastor of the First Church in New Haven, Conn. 


NEW HAVEN: 

PRINTED FOR THE FOREIGN EVANGELICAL SOCIETY. 
B. L. Hamlen, Printer. 

1845 . 



SERMON. 


John, xvii, 21-23. — “ That they all may be one ; as thou Father 
art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us : that the 
world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which 
thou gavest me, I have given them ; that they may be one, even 
as we are one : I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made 
perfect in one ; and that the world may know that thou hast sent 
me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.” 

The interpretation of particular passages of the 
New Testament is always affected to some extent by 
the views which we gather from the Scriptures as a 
whole, or the views which we receive from tradition 
or from any other source. The view which the Ra- 
tionalist takes of the person, the work and the relations 
of Christ, cannot but control his interpretation of all 
that was said and done by Jesus in that night in w ; hich 
he was betrayed. All that the evangelists tell us of 
that night, he must bring, either by some ingenious 
sophistry, or by some violent wresting of their testi- 
mony, into an agreement with his unbelieving theory ; 
or else he must give up that theory, and bow adoring 
before the majesty of the atoning and interceding 
Son of God. On the other hand the Formalist and 
Traditionist, with his view r s of the work of Christ as the 
founder of a hierarchy, and as shutting up the grace 


4 


and Spirit of God in forms and carnal ordinances ac- 
cessible only through outward union with the body 
which that hierarchy governs, — must of course inter- 
pret all the records of that night in accordance with 
his theory. To him the bread and the cup, the para- 
ble of the vine and the promise of the Comforter, the 
prayer and the agony — all must be made to have a 
meaning, by the overlaying of tradition and by the 
authority of the priesthood, that shall uphold the hie- 
rarchy and shall make the individual feel that his par- 
ticipation in Christ is dependent on his allegiance and 
obedience to the corporation that claims to be Christ’s 
body. But to the evangelical believer, who looks up- 
on Christ as indeed the Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sins of the world, and who has learned from 
the whole scope of the New Testament, that all who 
believe in Christ, taking him for their advocate with 
the Father, may have access to God in peace and love 
as children — the entire records of the last night before 
the crucifixion of the Son of God are bright with the 
glory of atonement and of the grace that saves through 
faith. He sees and interprets the whole from a dif- 
ferent point of view. The dilficulti 3S which perplex 
the Rationalist, are no difficulties to him. The law 
of commandments contained in ordinances, which the 
Formalist presupposes as lying at the foundation of 
the whole narrative, does not enter into his mind. 
He sees simply Christ, in the glory of the only begot- 
ten of the Father, full of grace and truth, counseling 


5 


and comforting his disciples, praying for them and 
giving himself to die for their redemption. 

Thus, in that memorable prayer of intercession 
which was the last utterance of the Savior ere he went 
forth to the mysterious agony of Gethsemane, the 
Rationalist sees only an uncertain record by John or 
by somebody else, of the prayer which a man of great 
genius and virtue offered for himself and his friends, 
in circumstances of depression when his enemies 
were conspiring against his life. The Formalist, on 
the other hand, finds in it the very charter, as it were, 
of the hierarchy and the corporation in behalf of which 
he claims a monopoly of the grace of God. But to 
the evangelical believer, this same prayer is nothing 
else than Christ the Redeemer interceding with 
the Father in behalf of every soul that humbly 
trusts in his redemption. Place yourself with me at 
the point of view from which he contemplates the 
record. Jesus of Nazareth stands before us in that 
upper chamber in Jerusalem, surrounded with a 
little company of humble but loving followers. Amid 
the oppressive anticipations of the impending hour, 
his thoughts are upon them, and not upon them 
only but upon all that shall believe on him through 
their word, even to the end of time. Having loved his 
own that are in the world, he loves them to the end. 
The hour is come — the hour in which the mysterious 
sacrifice for the sins of the world is to be consumma- 
ted before the wondering universe, that God may be 


6 


just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus — 
the hour in which the Son of God, “ the brightness of 
the Father’s glory and the express image of his per- 
son,” is to be ‘lifted up,’ in ignominy and in agony, that 
he may ‘ draw all men unto him.’ The hour is come ; 
and “ the power of darkness” is now to overshadow 
him. His parting words of counsel and of comfort to 
his sad followers have been spoken ; the parting keep- 
sake, the memorial that shall forever commemorate his 
love, and in which his love shall forever reveal itself 
to their souls, has been given them ; he is going forth 
to his last conflict with death and hell — going to 
tread the wine-press alone. But ere he goes forth 
to Gethsemane — to the pretorium — to Calvary — he 
breathes the divine emotions of his soul into the 
ear of the Eternal Father. “Father! the hour is 
come : glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify 
thee.” And what is that glorj upon which his heart 
is fixed, and in which the Father and the Son are 
mutual partakers ? It is his glory as a Redeemer, 
‘giving eternal life to as many as God has given him.’ 
What is that eternal life which he gives ? “ This” — 

he says in his prayer — “ this is life eternal ; that they 
may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ 
whom thou hast sent.” And who are they whom God 
hath given him, and to whom this life eternal is im- 
parted ? They are those — as he gives us to under- 
stand on another occasion — who ‘ come to him drawn 
by the Father who hath sent him.’ Or, as he clearly 


7 


delines them in this very prayer — “ I have given to 
them the words which thou gavest me; and they have 
received them, and have known surely that I came 
out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst 
send me.” They are those of whom he testifies, 
“ The world hath hated them,” “ they are not of the 
world even as I am not of the world.” For them he 
prays, “Holy Father keep through thine own name 
those whom thou hast given me, that they may be 
one as we are.” For them he prays, “I pray not that 
thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that 
thou shouldst keep them from the evil.” For them 
he prays, “ Sanctify them through thy truth ; thy 
word is truth.” For them he prays, “That they 
all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in 
thee, that they also may be one in us.” For them 
he prays, “ Father, I will that they also whom thou 
hast given me be with me where I am, that they 
may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for 
thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” 
Every thing in the understanding and interpretation 
of this prayer, depends upon the point of view from 
which it is contemplated. He who through careless- 
ness and unbelief, or in the spirit of a proud and 
vain philosophy, or under the guidance of priestcraft 
and of blinding tradition, misunderstands the person, 
the relations, and the work of Jesus Christ, or the 
way of salvation through him, — cannot but misunder- 
stand and darken the whole ; unless the felt incon- 


8 


gruity between the record and the theory by which 
he tries to interpret it, shall constrain him to give up 
his error and to acknowledge the truth as it is in re- 
spect to Christ and salvation. 

In this way it comes to pass that the particular 
words which I have selected from Christ’s interces- 
sory prayer to guide our thoughts this evening, are 
so often and so palpably misconstrued. The subject 
of these words is the unity of Christ’s disciples — the 
unity of his universal Church ; and the question is, 
What do these words teach us on that subject? 
Many a reader — many a learned expounder, first 
reads into the text his own conception of Christian 
or Catholic unity, and then adduces the text, thus 
interpolated as we may say, to support his foregone 
conclusion. Let us be on our guard against this 
error. Let us ask in simplicity, What is the unity 
which the text itself describes ; and then, turning to 
other Scriptures for farther instruction on this point, 
and looking at the actual state of visible Christianity 
in respect to the legitimate manifestation of Christian 
unity, let us apply the whole matter to our relations 
and our duties. 

We ask then, What is Christ’s own idea of Chris- 
tian unity, as intimated in the words of the text ? lie 
prays that those who believe on him may all be one : 
— in what sense, in what respect, would he have 
them one ? 


9 


1 . His language is, “ As” — more properly, ‘ inas- 
much as’ — “thou Father art in me and I in thee, [I 
pray] that they may be one in us.” It should be no- 
ticed that the form of the language here does not ne- 
cessarily imply a resemblance or comparison of that 
unity which subsists between the Father and the Son 
as distinct impersonations of the one Godhead, with 
the unity which is to bind together them that believe 
on Christ. The prayer that believers may be one, 
sustains itself by the argument that God is in Christ 
and Christ in God ; — it rests upon the fact that Christ 
is God manifest in the flesh, and that in Christ, God is 
redeeming and saving them that believe. ‘Inasmuch 
as thou Father art in me and I in thee — inasmuch as, 
in the work for which I have come into the world the 
relations between me and thee are what they are — 
inasmuch as I am thy Son, the incarnation of thy glory, 
and thou art in me reconciling the world to thyself — 
let them be one in us.’ What kind of a unity is 
this? — “one in us” — one in the Father and the Son. 
The prayer is that all who believe on Christ may be 
one in their relation to Christ and to God — one in 
their union to God in Christ. This is the first aspect 
in which Christ’s own idea of Christian unity presents 
itself in the text. 

2. But, as the Savior proceeds, the same idea pre- 
sents itself in another aspect. “ The glory which thou 
gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one 
even as we are one.” As Christ and the Father are 

2 


10 


one in the glory that shines upon earth in the person 
of the Savior, so all that believe in Christ are to be 
one in the participation of that glory. What then 
is the glory which the man Christ Jesus has received 
of the Father? It is the glory of God’s own image 
manifested in personal holiness. That glory Christ 
imparts to them that believe on him, that they may be 
one as he and the Father are one. The glory which 
Christ has received of the Father, is the glory of a 
redeeming and saving work on earth — the glory of 
saving the apostate and bringing forth the condemn- 
ed out of their prison-house. That glory Christ im- 
parts to all that believe on him. As he is the light of 
the world, so he says to them, “Ye are the light of 
the world.” As he came to seek and to save that 
which was lost, so they every where learn of him to 
do good to all men in his name, and especially to co- 
operate with him in their plaoes and according to their 
gifts, for the advancement of his saving work. As he 
says, “ I am the way, the truth and the life,” so they, 
taught by him, and speaking from the inmost depth of 
their experience, give testimony to that saying as faith- 
ful and worthy of all acceptation, that he came into the 
world to save sinners. As he cries, “If any man thirst 
let him come to me and drink ;” so they partaking in 
his Spirit, and beloved of him as the bride is beloved 
of her husband, cry everywhere with one consent and 
as with one voice, “ Come, — come ; and let him that 
heareth say come, and let him that is athirst come, and 


11 


whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” 
Thus he makes all that believe on him partakers in the 
glory of his redeeming work on earth, that in that work 
they all may be one even as he and his Father are one. 
Nor is this all. The glory which Christ has received 
of the Father is the glory of humiliation and suffering, 
and of ultimate triumph in the conflict with the powers 
of darkness. That glory, also, he imparts to his fol- 
lowers. The world that hated him, hates them, be- 
cause he takes them out of the world and makes them 
like himself. Hell that resisted him, and feared him, 
resists them, and fears his spirit in them anti his pres- 
ence with them. He, the captain of their salvation, 
was made perfect through sufferings ; they learn con- 
tinually that if they would fulfill their mission upon 
earth and finish the work that God has given them, it 
will cost them something ; they enter into the king- 
dom through much tabulation ; they press on to fill up 
that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ. He 
has overcome the world, and death, and hell — he has 
gone up as conqueror to be enthroned in heaven ; they 
also shall be conquerors — yea, more than conquerors 
through him that loved them. Thus he, in all things 
made like to those he saves, that he may be the first- 
born among many brethren, imparts to them the glory 
which he has received of the Father, that in that glory 
they may be one even as Christ and God are one. 

3. But we have not yet observed every aspect in 
which Christ’s idea of the unity which he would have 


12 


among his followers, presents itself in the text. “ I in 
them,” he says, still dwelling in his prayer upon the 
thought of this spiritual and blessed unity, “ I [am] in 
them, and thou in me, that they may be made per- 
fect in one.” They who have believed on Christ have 
all, one by one, received him into a vital union with 
their souls ; in Christ they are new creatures, their life 
is hid with Christ in God ; with them to live is Christ, 
Christ is formed in them the hope of glory. This is 
the character of all whom he owns as believing on 
him; they are new creatures, he is their life, and their 
immortal hope. And their hope does not rest merely 
upon his example as a man, or on his wisdom as a 
teacher, or on his divine commission as a prophet. 
Their Christ is “God manifest in the flesh.” Their 
God is not the God of nature merely, seen in the 
clouds and heard in the wind, shining in the sunlight 
and descending in the shower frowning in winter and 
smiling to receive earth’s joyous worship in the in- 
cense and the garlands and the songs of spring. 
Their God is more than this — more adorable, more to 
be feared, more to be loved, more to be praised, — God 
in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, — a God 
glorious in holiness and glorious in forgiveness, — a 
God that can be just and justify him that believeth in 
Jesus. This then is the unity which Christ would 
have among his followers. It is nothing less than 
Christ himself in them, — Christ in whom God is man- 
ifested to the soul, and through whom the soul has 


13 


communion with God. In proportion as Christ is 
formed in them, they become more completely one. 
In proportion as they grow in grace and in the know- 
ledge of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ — in pro- 
portion as they advance towards the measure of the 
stature of a perfect man in Christ — they are perfected 
into one. 

But the Savior, in his prayer, contemplates the unity 
of his believing followers in its effects upon the world. 
His prayer that they may all be one, and may be made 
perfect in one, or perfected into unity, contemplates 
these results, and urges them as arguments with God, 
— “ that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” 
— “ that the world may know that thou hast sent me, 
and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.” Let us 
see then whether that Christian unity which we under- 
stand him as directly describing in the text, is such as 
may be expected to produce these effects upon the 
world. Thus we shall put our interpretation to the test. 

I say, “ let us see,” for here the matter comes as it 
were within your immediate cognizance. The ap- 
peal lies directly to your consciousness and to your 
observation. I ask you then whether that unity of 
Christ’s believing followers which consists in their 
individual and united experience of the Gospel as 
a renewing and sanctifying power, is not, in its ef- 
fects upon the world at large, the most impressive 
and convincing of all testimonies to the divinity of 
Christ’s office and work as the Savior of the world, 


14 


and to the reality and specialty of God’s love to each 
believing soul. Conceive of whatever other kind of 
unity you will, and call it Christian unity, or the one- 
ness of Christ’s followers — the manifestation of it will 
have no pow r er to touch the consciences and com- 
mand the convictions of an unbelieving world — no 
power to make known that Jesus is the Christ, the 
Savior — no power to make men know that those 
upon whom Christ has performed his office are in- 
deed at peace with God, and in happy and loving 
communion with the High and Holy One. The 
united testimony of believing souls to their experi- 
ence of the inspiring and renewing power of Christ’s 
salvation — where that testimony is given, as it must 
always be given if real, not in words only, but in the 
life also — preaches to the world for Christ that God 
hath sent him, as nothing else can preach. When a 
sinner, repenting and coming to Christ, becomes 
a new creature — when Christ is formed within him 
the hope of glory — when he is transformed into the 
likeness of Christ, and partakes in the glory which 
the man Christ Jesus received of the Father, the 
glory of a personal conformity to God, the glory of 
co-operation in the work of saving men, the glory 
of humiliation and self-denial and victory in con- 
flict with evil — the world, looking on and wonder- 
ing, knows, notwithstanding its affectation of con- 
tempt, that God has loved that man with a pecu- 
liar love ; and the testimony to the world is as dis- 


15 


tinct as that miraculous voice which spoke from heav- 
en over the baptism of the Savior, “ This is my be- 
loved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And when 
that testimony is multiplied and combined by thou- 
sands on thousands of instances, and comes up in 
loud and sweet accord, like the choral song of an- 
gels, from every land and in every language in which 
the Gospel is made known, the world, in its inmost 
heart of unbelief and atheism, trembles at the mani- 
festation of God in the power and love of his redeem- 
ing Son. 

The time would fail us if I should attempt an ex- 
tended induction of those passages of the New Testa- 
ment which go to illustrate or confirm this exposition 
of the text as exhibiting Christ’s own idea of Chris- 
tian unity. Nor is this necessary. He who reads the 
Apostles in simplicity, laying aside the prejudices 
which he has received from tradition cr from specula- 
tion, and seeking only to enter exactly into their 
minds, and to attach to their words precisely the 
meaning in which they used them, will easily find for 
himself that the Apostles had no other idea of Christian 
unity than that which Christ gives us in the text. 
The Epistle to the Ephesians might almost be entitled 
a commentary on the passage which we have been 
expounding. The great theme of the Epistle is the 
union of all believers, Jew and Gentile, here and in 
heaven — their union in Christ, their common head — 
the union by which they become his body, his univer- 


16 


sal church, the fullness of him who filleth all in all. 
Their unity is, that they are raised up together, and 
made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ — 
that they are all God’s workmanship, created in Christ 
Jesus to good works to which God predestined them 
— that in Christ Jesus they are made nigh to God by 
the blood of Christ who hath made both Jew and Gen- 
tile one, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even 
the law of commandments contained in ordinances, and 
hath reconciled both to God in one body by the cross. 
Their unity is that through Christ they all have access 
by one Spirit to the Father, and thus are fellow citi- 
zens with the saints and of the household of God. 
Their unity is that they are rooted and built up in 
him, established in faith — built on the foundation of the 
prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the 
chief corner-stone. Their unity is expressly the unity 
of the Spirit. Thus there is. one body including all 
that are united to Christ as their head, — one Spirit 
breathing in all as the Spirit of adoption, one hope to 
which that Spirit calls them, one Lord their Savior, 
one faith that rests upon him for salvation, one inward 
cleansing of which baptism is the symbol, one God and 
Father of all, who is above all and through all, and in 
them all. To this unity, apostles, and prophets, and 
evangelists, and pastors, and teachers, contribute not 
by being themselves its center, or its condition, or its 
symbol, but only as their instrumentality in the work 
of the ministry, and in the building up of the body 


17 


of Christ, becomes effectual to the perfecting of the 
saints.* 

The views, then, which we gather from the Scrip- 
tures, may be summed up in the following proposi- 
tions. 

I. The followers of Christ — those who truly be- 
lieve on him — constitute one body, one great fellow- 
ship or communion ; and their unity is essentially a 
living and spiritual unity, a unity of principles and 
affections, a unity of relations towards Christ and 
God. Like every thing else in Christianity, this 
Christian unity has its being not in forms but in the 
Spirit. It consists not in conformity to an external 
law — a law of details and overt performances — a law 
of commandments contained in ordinances, but in the 
vital action of an inward living power, the law of the 
Spirit of life in Jesus Christ. 

We hold then, according to the Scriptures, that 
Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem 
us from all iniquity, has “ purified to himself a peculiar 
people zealous of good works.” He has a people 
that are distinctly and peculiarly his possession ; and 
the character of that people — that by virtue of which 
they are one people, is their experience of Christ’s 
salvation, their inward cleansing by the grace of God, 
which makes them zealous of good works. This 
scriptural doctrine is the doctrine which at an early 


* Ephes. i, ii, iii, and iv, 1 — 16. Compare Col. i, ii. 

3 


18 


age had a place in the formula by which Christians 
ordinarily made profession of their faith, under the 
expression, “ I believe in one holy universal church.” 
And though in that gradual and long continued pro- 
cess of corruption to which Christianity was subject- 
ed in the hands of men, this doctrine was perhaps of 
all doctrines most corrupted, it has not been rejected. 
To this day, all who bear the Christian name profess, 
in one form of words or another, a belief in one holy 
universal church, of which Christ is the head. Christ’s 
ransomed followers in every land and in every age 
constitute a communion or fellowship, a spiritual com- 
monwealth, a holy brotherhood, of which he is the 
leader and the king. Local churches may be multi- 
plied and divided — particular congregations or confed- 
eracies of believers may be many and various ; but 
Christ’s holy universal church, the kingdom of God 
which is righteousness and .peace and joy, in the 
Holy Spirit, is one. 

II. The manifestation of this Christian unity must 
be, in the nature of the case, spontaneous and vital, 
not coerced and formal. The Spirit of God dwelling 
in the hearts of men, and renewing them in God’s 
image, will make itself manifest as a living Spirit. It 
may manifest itself in many different forms and by 
many varieties of evidence, according to the circum- 
stances in which it acts, or according to the peculiar- 
ities of the age, the country or the individual ; but all 
those manifestations will be manifestations of one and 


• 19 


the same Spirit — the Spirit of love, of truth, of holi- 
ness — the Spirit of a living Christ — the Spirit, in a 
word, of God. All these manifestations, too, must 
proceed from within, like the leaves, the blossoms and 
the fruit upon a living tree ; they cannot be construct- 
ed and imposed from without. Uniformity is not uni- 
ty ; nor is it of course evidence of unity. Uniformity 
imposed by the coercion of the State, or by the pow- 
er of sectarian arrangements and corporations, or by 
. the domination of a spiritual despotism, and sub- 
mitted to in sluggishness or cowardice, or in the spirit 
of formalism, is as far from being a manifestation or 
resemblance of Christian unity, as artificial leaves and 
buds fastened upon wire with threads and paste, are 
from being a manifestation or resemblance of that un- 
seen vital power which, in the living plant, working 
by processes of its own, puts forth the green and 
growing stem, spreads out from within the delicately 
folded leaf, and opens the bud into the flower to show 
its beauty in the light and to shed its incense on 
the air. 

III. The advancement of this unity among Chris- 
tians, both as respects its spiritual essence, and as re- 
spects its spontaneous manifestations, is mainly de- 
pendent on the progressive emancipation of Christians 
from error and selfishness and the dominion of the 
world, and on their growth in grace and in the knowl- 
edge of Christ. On this point, I will seek no other 
illustration than that which Paul gives us when, as he 


/ 


20 


tells the Ephesians of what Christ has done for the 
universal church in giving it — not, as some think, a 
reigning and a sacrificing priesthood — but a guiding 
and teaching ministry, apostles, prophets, evangelists, 
pastors and teachers, he points to the end for which 
that ministry, in all the variety of its gifts and works, is 
given, “ the perfecting of the saints — till we all come 
to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the 
Son of God, to” the maturity and symmetry of “ a 
perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the full- 
ness of Christ, that thus we may be no more children 
tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind 
of doctrine by the sleight of men and by the craf- 
tiness with which they beguile and deceive ; but 
speaking,” or more properly receiving and maintain- 
ing, “ the truth in love, may grow up entirely into him 
Avho is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole 
body fitly joined together and compacted by the con- 
nection of each constituent portion, according to the 
inward working in the measure of every part, maketh 
increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love.” 
With these lessons in our minds from the teachings 
of Christ and his apostles, let us cast our eyes for a 
moment upon the actual state of visible Christianity 
in the world, and upon our own relations and duties. 
Let us ask to what extent the unity of those that be- 
lieve on Christ is manifested as a fact, — what hin- 
drances obstruct its progress and its legitimate mani- 
festations, — and what there is for us to do that the 


21 


prayer which our Redeemer offered as he was girding 
himself for his last conflict may have its perfect con- 
summation. 

I. Is there in fact, among evangelical believers, 
such a unity as we have described — a unity vital and 
spiritual in its nature, yet cognizable as a matter of 
fact in its spontaneous manifestations. I answer, 
there is such a unity, and the church feels it, and the 
world sees it, and the powers of darkness fear it. 
Evangelical Christianity, as distinguished from the 
Christianity of Rationalism on the one hand, and 
from the Christianity of Formalism on the other hand, 
is one thing, and those who hold it, and especially 
those who so hold it as to experience its power, are 
one communion. Whatever forms divide them — what- 
ever variety of names they bear — whatever errors and 
prejudices may interrupt their mutual helpfulness or 
alienate them from each other for a season — they are 
all members in fact of one body. Do you ask, Where 
is their union ? I answer, Their union is in the tes- 
timony which God has given concerning his Son, in 
the affections and hopes which it inspires, and in the 
experience of its offered grace. They are united in 
looking to Christ alone as their Mediator with God, 
and in trusting for pardon to the simple efficacy of 
his blood. They are united in that Christ is formed 
in them — in that the law of the Spirit of life in Jesus 
Christ lives in them as the law of liberty — in that by 
one Spirit of adoption they have access through Christ 


22 


to the Father. They are united in bearing witness to 
the truth, that except a man be born again he cannot 
see the kingdom of God ; and in testifying to each 
other and the world that Christianity is not a name, 
nor a form, but a living experience of the grace and 
power of a reigning Savior. 

The historical and statistical illustrations of the com- 
prehensive fact which I am now asserting, are too many 
and various to be enumerated here. It is a fact of 
history, established by a host of specifications, that 
Protestant Evangelical Christianity, considered as ac- 
tually existing in the various countries of Europe and 
America, manifests its identity of life in the sympathy 
by which disease and decay, or invigorated health, in 
one part, tends to spread itself instantaneously through 
the whole body. At the period of the Reformation, all 
the Reformers looked upon themselves as partners in 
one work ; all their churches acknowledged each 
other as members of one communion. Then, the cau- 
ses which afterwards produced division, had no place. 
The identity of the system of education in all Euro- 
pean countries, — the use of one learned language as 
the medium of communication among the learned in 
all professions, — and the alliances for mutual defense 
which connected the governments or the political chiefs 
of the Reformed in various countries, — permitted the 
whole Protestant body to enjoy for a season as intimate 
a recognition of each other, as the nature of that imper- 
fect reformation, entangled with political movements 


23 


and interests, would allow. Then it was that the 
Tyndals and Coverdales, the Jewels and Cranmers of 
England, and the Knoxes and Melvilles of Scotland, 
felt that they were contending with a common enemy 
for a common freedom and a common salvation. Then 
it was that Switzerland sent her Reformed divines to 
sit in the chairs of theology at Cambridge and at 
Oxford. Then it was that Canterbury was not 
ashamed of Geneva; while that stern heroic French- 
man, Calvin, was not only by his published Institutes, 
but by his private confidential correspondence, a 
guiding spirit in the English Reformation. And when 
in England the reign of Mary kindled the fires of per- 
secution, and a thousand confessors of all ranks in 
church and state found safety only in flying from their 
native soil, Frankfort and Geneva, Heidelberg and 
Zurich opened their gates and their temples to re- 
ceive those exiles as brethren. In that age, the unity 
of Evangelical Christianity made itself palpable by a 
thousand spontaneous manifestations. Afterwards for 
a long time the Reformation was on the whole, first 
stationary, then retrograde, while the zeal of its friends 
was chiefly expended upon the work of defining it and 
putting it into an unchangeable shape for all posterity, 
till embalmed as it were in syntagmas of theology and 
confessions of faith, from which the living spirit that 
gave the Reformation power and beauty had departed, 
it had well nigh become a swathed and blackened 
mummy, or a cold, hard, ghastly petrifaction. Then 


24 


came an era of decay and spiritual atrophy. Formal- 
ism, against which the Reformation was a protest, dis- 
guised itself in the forms which spiritual religion had 
put on when it was alive and active ; and in Protest- 
ant as well as Romish communities, the formalities of 
religion became a veil under which irreligion and sheer 
unbelief were slowly propagating themselves, and 
threatening to annihilate the Gospel. A century ago, 

i 

God interposed by his Spirit. He raised up White- 
field and Wesley in England — he raised up the Ers- 
kines in Scotland — he raised up Edwards and Davies 
in America — he raised up Franke and Spener in Ger- 
many — he brought forward his witnesses every where 
to hold forth anew the great doctrines of spiritual and 
experimental religion. Then began that renewal of 
the Reformation, of which we in our day behold the 
increasing progress, and which is even now only begin- 
ning to develop itself. 

Now I say that while Evangelical Christianity has 
been affected in various countries by the varieties of 
national character, by the various degrees in which the 
churches have been subjected to the power of the 
State, and by the influences of individual minds, the 
entire history of the Evangelical Protestant churches 
from the day of Luther to the present hour will show 
that those churches in all their varieties of condition 
and character are one body, — that if one member 
suffer all the members suffer with it, and if one mem- 
ber rejoice and be in health, all the members, by some 


25 


secret and spiritual sympathy, feel the invigorating im- 
pulse. He who will trace that history, not mechani- 
cally from year to year for a few years only, but in an 
enlarged survey from one epoch to another, from 1550 
to 1650, thence to the middle of the last century, and 
thence to the point of time at which we stand, — will 
see that the vicissitudes, the perils, the diseases, the 
revivals and the progress of Evangelical Christianity, 
amid all the diversities of language and government 
and nation, amid all the conflicting influences arising 
from political alienations and wars and revolutions, are 
one story, the story of a living unity. As the tide 
raised from the bosom of the vast Atlantic when the 
moon hangs over it in her height, swells into every 
estuary, and every bay and sound, and every quiet 
cove and sheltered haven, and is felt far inland where 
mighty streams rise in their channels and pause upon 
their journey to the sea ; and when the moon retires, 
the ebbing waves every where rush back in homage to 
the power that draws them towards the center ; — so 
whatever influence from above or from below moves 
on the common mind of Protestantism, there is a sym- 
pathy which carries that influence, slowly or swiftly, 
according to the presence or absence of obstructions, 
to every part of the vast body which, diffused and 
separated, is yet one and has one life. 

More especially has this sympathy been developed 
in the recent history of Evangelical Christianity. It is 
now just half a century since the reviving Christianity 

4 


26 


of Luther and the Reformers assumed its present ag- 
gressive attitude in relation to the world. Fifty years 
ago, the Evangelical churches of Great Britain and 
America, under the impulse of that spreading and 
growing revival of spiritual religion which commenced 
in the age of Edwards and Whitefield, began slowly to 
receive and to attempt the great conception of the 
conversion of the world to God. That beginning was 
made when Europe was convulsed by the wars of the 
French Revolution. Of course the impulse of modern 
evangelism could not then immediately reach the 
churches on the continent ; — nay, it must needs pro- 
pagate itself slowly even in the communities among 
which it originated. In the churches of France, 
Switzerland and Northern Europe, all the causes of 
corruption in doctrine and in practice — all the in- 
fluences that were infecting them with the torpor of 
death — continued to work with no effectual counter- 
action. But now for thirty years there has been 
peace. And what has been the consequence? The 
natural sympathy which connects the Protestant com- 
munity diffused through various countries, has found 
an opportunity to restore itself. Many a devout mind, 
touched with the Spirit of grace, has caught the inspir- 
ing idea of the duty and the privilege of cooperating 
to carry the Gospel, as God’s own and only remedy for 
human guilt and woe, to every creature under heaven. 
And in proportion as that idea has been received and 
acted upon, the living sympathies that unite the host 


27 


of God’s elect have been made manifest. The Pro- 
testant Evangelical missionaries of various names and 
nations and languages, who meet each other upon 
heathen or Mohammedan ground, are one in Christ, 
holding one Gospel ; they feel that they are one ; 
they show that they are one ; their acts of mutual 
communion and helpfulness are a spontaneous mani- 
festation — and a thousand times more impressive be- 
cause spontaneous — of the actual unity, the living 
spiritual unity, that subsists among all the parts and 
members of the body of Christ. Thus this coopera- 
tive aggression upon the vast empire of the darkness 
of this world, wakens the unity of Evangelical Protest- 
antism into consciousness and power. As in the con- 
federacy of these states, each state is sovereign in its 
proper jurisdiction, and seems to be independent, 
insomuch that many a superficial observer, coming 
among us from abroad, and ignorant of the nature of 
our union, has been certain that we must perish ere 
long for want of a centralized monarchy to give us 
cohesion ; so in the great body of Protestant Chris- 
tendom, each particular community regulates its own 
affairs in its own way, without reference to the will of 
any apostolic see or any conclave of cardinals, — and 
those who, reasoning upon Romanizing principles, and 
looking only at the surface, can conceive of no unity 
where there is liberty and consequent diversity of 
forms, imagine that Protestantism must perish in its 
own divisions. But in the presence of a foreign and 


28 


especially of a hostile power, these states are one ; the 
citizen in the presence of an enemy is a citizen not of 
Massachusetts or of Carolina but of the Union ; their 
banner on the land and on the sea is one, blazoned not 
with the pine tree of New Hampshire, nor with the 
vines of Connecticut, nor with the orient sun of New 
York, but with the thirteen stripes and the still grow- 
ing constellation. So Protestant Christianity, with all 
its varieties of form, when it arrays itself for action 
against the common enemy, is one ; and in the pre- 
sence of Pagan, Mohammedan, or persecuting Papist, 
these distinctions and diversities are merged and for- 
gotten. “ One and indivisible,” was the motto of a re- 
public without liberty — a republic of atheism and of 
massacre. “E Pluribus Unum,” is the motto of that 
great expanding Union which spreads its protection 
over our freedom. The commonwealth of Christ’s 
own Israel is a commonwealth of freemen ; and while 
it is so, it cannot take to itself the bloody motto, “ One 
and indivisible its unity must be none other than 
unity in diversity. 

II. I did propose the inquiry, What are some of the 
hindrances that obstruct the advancement of this unity, 
and prevent its legitimate and natural manifestation 1 
But what I had to say on this point I will pass over 
with only a glance, as it were, at topics loo important 
to be fairly discussed within these limits. 

1. The first of these hindrances, as they have pre- 
sented themselves to my attention in my meditations 


29 


on the theme before us, is a prevalent popish zeal for 
uniformity, as if that were unity. Well might the 
Savior say to his disciples, “ Beware of the leaven of 
the Pharisees.” The popery that may be found dif- 
fused like leaven in various Protestant communities — 
even among us — is more to be dreaded, and does more 
mischief, in respect to the development of Christian 
unity, than all the popery there is at Rome. The 
grand mistake of the church of Rome — that which 
sublimates all its other errors from mere Pharisaism 
and superstition into popery — is that it prefers a dead 
outward uniformity above that living unity which is the 
unity of the Spirit. Recite the Apostles’ creed, the 
creed of Athanasius, and the creed of the Council of 
Trent — repeat certain time-hallowed forms of worship 
in the identical words and tones of a dead language in 
which they have been transmitted from dead ages — 
above all, be reverently subject to the one constituted 
hierarchy with its one human head — and this is what 
Rome means by unity. How many are the Protestant 
communities in which some similar ideas of unity are 
working with no other efficacy than to divide and 
weaken the household of faith. Zeal for or against a 
liturgy — zeal for this or that confession of faith, or 
rather for this or that dogmatic exposition of the entire 
system of Christianity — zeal for this or that particular 
model of church order which the fathers are reported 
to have seen in the mount, but which the fathers pro- 
bably never saw any where — this unwarranted zeal 


30 


for uniformity in one shape or another, still claiming 
the honors of a zeal for unity, works to divide and 
alienate those who are one in Christ. Had the Re- 
formation been on this point, every where, and 
thoroughly, consistent with itself — had the leaven of 
popery in this respect been purged out from all the 
churches of the Reformation at the beginning — the 
Reformation never would have gone backward, never 
would have been stationary — it would have stood 
stronger than a bannered army, glorious in the spon- 
taneous manifestation of evangelical unity ; and, long 
ere now, Babylon would have fallen. 

2. Another very obvious hindrance to the develop- 
ment and manifestation of this Christian unity, is found 
in the extent to which the church in many countries is 
subject to the civil power. It was another grand dis- 
aster of the Reformation, that the state in almost every 
country seized upon that power over the church which 
had been wrested from the Roman pontiff. A state 
church, if it is a church at all in any Christian sense, is 
a church in fetters. The fetters may be gilded ; but 
gilded and gorgeous they are fetters still. Its unity is 
uniformity, coerced, not spontaneous ; for so far as it 
is a state church — so far as it is established and con- 
trolled by the civil power — it has to do only with things 
outward and palpable. The dissenter from such a 
church, even though dissent may be tolerated by the 
laws, must needs be regarded both by the church and 
by the state of which the church is a department, as 


31 


wanting in loyalty, and almost half a traitor to his 
country. The churches of other lands, as they are 
foreign to the state, are also foreign to the state’s estab- 
lishment; and between the churches of two contigu- 
ous countries, considered as state churches, there can 
be no spontaneous manifestations of unity, and no com- 
munion except under the arrangements of secular 
legislation or diplomacy. What an illustration of this 
do we find in the recent glorious secession of the Free 
Church of Scotland. The moment those ministers 
and congregations renounced their connection with 
the state, they felt that they were free — free to com- 
mune and cooperate with all Christ’s people every 
where ; and this new consciousness of freedom was in 
that very hour their joy and exultation. The “ volun- 
tary principle” — the principle of perfect and absolute 
religious freedom — the principle that without compro- 
mise or evasion gives to Caesar the things that are 
Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s — that 
principle, thoroughly carried out, and every where es- 
tablished, is essential to the universal and complete 
manifestation of the living unity of Christ’s disciples. 

3. Another obstacle is found in those low and con- 
fused ideas of the nature of Christianity, which have 
still so wide an influence. Ke who knows not what 
the Gospel is in its primitive and apostolic simplicity — 
he who does not habitually contemplate it in the grand 
scriptural outline of the provision which it makes for 
the pardon and renovation of sinful man — he who con- 


32 


founds that which is essential with that which is 
merely circumstantial — he who has not received and 
comprehended the spirit of that which is written, “ In 
Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, 
nor uncircumcision, but a new creature” — he will find 
himself of course shut up within his narrow views, and 
forbidden to give expression to the living sympathy 
within him that yearns to embrace as brethren all who 
love his Lord. Are there, among those who hear me, 
none whose consciousness can tell them what this 
means ? Are there not those here who have some- 
times longed to hold forth the hand of fellowship to a 
Christian brother or to some body of Christian breth- 
ren, and have found themselves hedged in by some 
separating principle of organization, or some barrier of 
wire-drawn metaphysical orthodoxy, which Paul would 
have leaped over in a moment. Look at Paul’s large 
and manly spirit. “As many,” says he, “as walk by 
this rule” — that is, the rule just quoted, that in Christ 
Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor un- 
circumcision but a new creature — “ as many as walk 
by this rule,” acknowledging every man as a fellow 
Christian who gives evidence of being born anew', 
“ peace be on them and mercy and then with a 
turn of thought inimitably beautiful, as if remembering 
that there may be Christians, truly such, who through 
the narrowness of their constitution or of their training 
do not walk according to this rule, he adds, “and upon 
the Israel of God.” If all who believe in Christ had 


33 


Paul’s high, clear views of what Christianity is, and of 
what it is that makes a man a Christian, the greatest 
and most obstinate of all hindrances to the develop- 
ment and manifestation of Christian unity would be 
removed. 

III. There remains another question to which a few 
words must be given before we leave the subject. 
What are some of our duties as American Christians, 
in relation to the manifestation and progress of a true 
and spiritual unity among all Christ’s followers 1 What 
would Christ have us to do that his regenerated fol- 
lowers may be universally and manifestly one ? To 
this question I answer, 

1. Christ would have us enter fully and heartily, 
earnestly and practically, into the grandeur and free- 
dom of the Gospel as designed for the world. The 
Gospel is never seen in its true light — never fairly and 
adequately appreciated — never contemplated from that 
point of view from which the difference between the 
essential and the unessential becomes, as it were, self- 
evident — till it is contemplated, not theoretically only, 
but with an earnest, practical, Christlike benevolence, 
as designed for the world, God’s remedy for human 
wickedness and human woe. “ Go ye into all the 
world and preach the Gospel to every creature,” is 
Christ’s commission to his disciples, every where and 
in every age ; and it is only as they enter into the spirit 
of this commission that they have any right to expect 

the fulfillment of the accompanying promise, “ Lo, I 

5 


34 


am with you always, even to the end of the world.” 
Let Christians every where enter heartily and devo- 
tedly into Christ’s plan and enterprise for the salvation 
of the world ; let them meet upon that common ground 
with simple Christian zeal, with one cause, one master, 
and one hope ; and they will find that they are one ; 
they will understand themselves and understand each 
other ; sectarian and hereditary differences in the ex- 
position of the Gospel will seem less and less impor- 
tant, and will dwindle and disappear; and the world 
will see that Christ’s true followers are one. 

But in this land of ours, it is especially incumbent on 
Christ’s followers to appreciate their relations to the 
Gospel as designed for the world, and to Christ’s 
great enterprise of saving the world by the publication 
of his Gospel to every creature. God has given us a 
country such as was never before given to any people ; 
a country which he reserved till these last days as if 
for some great and peculiar purpose in his providence 
over the world. Here, for the first time in eighteen 
centuries, Christianity holds its legitimate position in 
respect to political institutions — subject neither to state 

r 

persecution on the one hand nor to state patronage on 
the other. The consequence is that here the genius 
of Christianity, in every form, and under every organi- 
zation, shows itself active and aggressive. It holds its 
ground only as it is continually commended to men’s 
consciences by the manifestation of the truth. And it 
must be commended to men’s consciences by the life 


35 


and power there is in it ; it must win its way, conquer- 
ing and to conquer ; those who hold it must propagate 
it ; or, in the rapid growth and expansion of our popu- 
lation, and the springing up of cities and of states, 
Christianity and all its institutions will be left behind ; 
and this fair empire, its palladium lost, will rush upon 
its ruin. Meanwhile every citizen, and especially 
every thoughtful Christian citizen, is constrained to 
feel the relations of his country to the world. Hither 
are tending streams of emigration from all the lands of 
Europe ; the report of what our country is, has gone 
out into all lands, and myriads, strangers in lineage 
and in speech, moved by that report, are pouring in to 
mingle their destinies with ours, and ours with theirs. 
The civilized nations are looking upon us, and watching 
for the success or failure of our institutions, as for the 
issue of a grand experiment that concerns the world. 
A commerce that rushes over every sea, and bears our 
starry ensign into every port, brings us into contact 
with every region of earth’s surface. The conscious- 
ness that our country is destined to act upon the 
world, not by conquest and dominion, but by moral in- 
fluences, has come to be one of the elements of our 
national character. Surely, then, we as American 
Christians are summoned as by a peculiar call, to enter 
with all our hearts and all our energies into sympathy 
with the spirit of the Gospel as designed for universal 
diffusion and universal conquest. In the position in 
which we stand, enjoying such freedom, and conscious 


36 


of such relations to the world and the world’s destiny, 
it becomes us above all other men to feel that the Gos- 
pel which we have received is, in the plan of its great 
Author, the common heritage of all nations, and to put 
forth our utmost efforts, that the great design of the 
world’s Redeemer may be speedily accomplished. 
Thus sympathizing and cooperating with Christ him- 
self in the grandeur of his redeeming work, we shall 
feel, and where our influence reaches we shall do 
something to make others feel, that among those who 
believe on him and hope in his salvation, all distinctions 
of country, or language, or ecclesiastical arrangement, 
are as nothing, but Christ, the world’s Redeemer, is all 
and in alb 

2. It is no less obvious that Christ would have us 
cultivate, as extensively as may be, an acquaintance 
and active correspondence with evangelical Christians 
throughout the world. Whatever we can do towards 
making a natural and spontaneous manifestation of the 
unity of Christ’s spiritual body, that Christ would 
have us do. He would have us make it manifest to 
ourselves and to the world that we recognize as 
brethren, not Christians of one country and lineage 
alone, but all in every land who love his Gospel, 
and find access through him in one spirit to the Fa- 
ther.* 

What was the unity of the universal church in the 
days of the Apostles ? It was a unity manifested 


* See the Appendix. 


37 


in universal intercourse and universal mutual help- 
fulness, among Christians of various churches and lan- 
guages and nations. The recorded acts of the Apos- 
tles, and their letters to the churches, show you 
how it was. The apostles and evangelists, those 
leaders and teachers of the church, performed the 
circuit of the known world, touching and wakening 
every where those spiritual sympathies, in the exercise 
of which all believers became conscious that they 
were one. And of all the symbols or manifestations 
of fellowship none was more striking, none more edi- 
fying, than the contributions which were made in one 
country for the relief or advancement of the churches 
of another ; as when in the Gentile church at Anti- 
och, “ the disciples, every man according to his abil- 
ity, determined to send relief to the brethren who 
dwelt in Judea,” and their contributions, “sent by the 
hands of Barnabas and Saul,” were the recorded 
proof that among believers in Christ, the Jew and 
Gentile are mutually one ; or as when “ it pleased 
them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain 
contribution for the poor saints who were at Jerusa- 
lem.” So the arrangements which in the providence 
of God we are permitted to make for the benefit of 
feeble and depressed or persecuted churches in the old 
world, — the actual intercourse which our messengers, 
our ministers and the brethren of our churches are 
permitted to hold with the churches in those lands 
for their edification or encouragement, — the informa- 


38 


tion respecting the state and progress of those church- 
es that comes to us by every steam-ship over the At- 
lantic, and is immediately conveyed to myriads of sym- 
pathizing readers under these western skies, — all these 
things are so many indications of what Christ would 
have us do, and how he would have us cooperate 
with him to promote and bring into full development 
the living unity of his disciples scattered through the 
world. 

3. Christ would have us aid in the revival of true 
and pure religion every where. True Christian unity 
is, in its essence, the unity of Christian experience. 
And in proportion as the experience which believers 
have of the renewing power of the Gospel becomes 
distinct and pure and strong, in proportion as with one 
accord they lift up their voices to testify to all around 
them what God has done for. their souls, and to bid 
men come and take the water of life freely ; in that 
proportion is their unity manifested to themselves and 
to the world. What the churches need above all 
things else in order to a complete and self-manifested 
union, is revival and refreshing from the Lord, the uni- 
versal outpouring upon them of God’s renewing and 
all-quickening Spirit. Dead formalism, whether it be 
the formalism of order or the formalism of orthodoxy, 
whether it be the formalism of ordinances and rituals, 
or the formalism of rules and constitutions and propri- 
eties and decencies, can never develop the unity of 
Christ’s living and spiritual body. Oh, for the breath 


39 


of God to breathe upon our souls and upon the souls 
of all his people! Let us watch and pray — let us 
strive continually that in our hearts and in our churches, 
in our various spheres of personal influence, and in 
every land and place where Christ is named, there may 
be the reviving and flourishing of that Christianity 
which is nothing else than the experience of Christ 
crucified as the wisdom of God and the power of God 
to salvation. Thus shall it be seen every where, and 
become palpable, to the silencing of gainsayers and to 
the conviction and persuasion of unbelievers, that 
Christ’s followers are one. Thus truth, liberty, holi- 
ness and brotherly love shall walk hand in hand from 
conquest to conquest, till earth, rejoicing in her Re- 
deemer, shall bloom in the beauty of a new creation. 

And now, Christian brethren, let me ask you, Is 
there any way in which you can cooperate for the 
consummation of Christ’s desire and prayer in the 
text, more effectually than by giving your aid to that 
Society in behalf of which we are assembled this 
evening. The Foreign Evangelical Society, through 
which the contributions of believers in this favored 
land go forth to cheer and strengthen the churches of 
the Reformation in other lands, is itself a product and 
a manifestation of the actual unity of Evangelical Pro- 
testantism. Wherever its agents and messengers are 
found, wherever its correspondence reaches, it is the 
organ of that large and catholic sympathy which, rising 


40 


above national and ecclesiastical distinctions, recognizes 
as members of Christ’s body all who by his Spirit learn 
to cry in whatever language “ Abba, Father.” It looks 
upon the world as given to Christ, and it seeks to call 
forth and array the strength of the universal common- 
wealth of spiritual Christendom for the conquest of the 
world. It opens a thousand channels of communica- 
tion and mutual influence between those whom the 
barriers of language and the barriers of ocean separate. 
It constitutes a new bond of union between the land 
of Edwards and the land of Calvin. It stretches its 
telegraphic wires from the snowy Alps to the forest- 
crowned Alleghanies ; and voices of prayer that rise 
in the Green Mountains of New England become con- 
scious of an echo from the deep glens of the Vaudois, 
consecrated of old with the blood and fires of martyr- 
dom. It lives for the work of revival ; and wherever 
it labors, it beholds, by God’s blessing on its enterprise, 
the fruit of the Spirit. God has blessed it ; and while 
he goes on to bless it still, may you share in the bless- 
edness of its beneficence and the joy of its success. 


41 


APPENDIX. 


The author of the Sermon may be allowed to introduce 
here a suggestion which was given to the public, through 
another channel, more than a year ago. Since that time the 
same thought has been taken up by Dr. Merle D’Aubigne of 
Geneva, and has been urged by him not only upon the Swiss 
churches in the Conference at St. Gall, but more recently 
upon the Free Church of Scotland in his profound and elo- 
quent speech at the late session of their General Assembly. 

“All the developments of the controversy with formalism 
are forcing evangelical Protestants to think less of the points 
that divide them, and to fix their attention more upon that 
truly Catholic Christianity which they hold in common. 
We say then that the signs of the times are imperatively 
calling them to consult together for their common welfare 
and edification, and for aggression and defense against a 
common enemy. We do not say that the Presbyterian and 
the Methodist, the Baptist and the Congregationalism must 
at once abandon their several peculiarities of order and of 
doctrine, and must unite in one great undivided ecclesias- 
tical organization, with one confession of faith, one form of 
government, one system of arrangements for the propaga- 
tion of the Gospel. In this place, we only suggest the 
question whether there may not be among evangelical 
Christians of various names and connections, more of corres- 

6 


42 


pondence and mutual consultation, a more explicit recog- 
nition of the obligation to mutual communion, and a clearer 
holding forth of their actual unity in faith and hope ; and 
whether, as the result of this, there may not be more of 
cooperation in the advancement of the common cause ; and 
a new impulse given to the reformation and revival of Chris- 
tianity throughout Christendom. Why might there not be, 
on some fit occasion in New York, such a thing as a full 
conference of evangelical ministers of various denominations, 
from various parts of the United States, at least for prayer 
and mutual edification, if not for consultation and inquiry 
respecting the advancement of religion? Nay, why might 
there not be, ere long, some general conference in which 
the various evangelical bodies of this country and of Great 
Britain, and of the continent of Europe, should be in some 
way represented, and in which the great cause of reformed 
and spiritual Christianity throughout the world, should be 
made the subject of detailed and deliberate consideration, 
with prayer and praise ? That would bean “ecumenical 
council,” such as never yet assembled since the Apostles 
parted from each other at Jerusalem, a council not for legis- 
lation and division, but for union and communion, and for 
the extension of the saving knowledge of Christ. Suppose 
such a convention, met at London, or Edinburgh, or Geneva ; 
suppose that the facts respecting the state of evangelical and 
experimental piety, are reported from one country and an- 
other in succession, and brought under the deliberate con- 
sideration of the assembly there, and then after having been 
digested and discussed are carried back by the various rep- 
resentatives to all the regions and churches from which they 
came. Suppose the resources of the various evangelical 
churches throughout Christendom are reported, their institu- 


43 


% 


tions of education, their arrangements and opportunities for 
the diffusion of religious intelligence, their means of self- 
defense and self-extension, their methods of aggression on 
the world around them, and their plans and enterprises for 
the propagation of the Gospel among the nations. Suppose 
all this knowledge summed up and discussed in connection 
with the inquiry, what more can we do, and how can we 
best sustain and help each other ? Suppose that upon that 
assembly the Spirit of God is poured out, as the spirit of grace 
and supplication, the spirit of love and faith and zeal. What 
would be the effect of all this upon the churches and upon 
the world? How easily may the reader nominate in his 
own thoughts a delegation from the Congregationalists, 
from each of the two great Presbyterian bodies, from the 
Baptists, and from the Methodists, whose presence in such a 
convention to report with one accord the facts respecting 
religion in America, and the progress of living Christianity 
in connection with the voluntary principle, — would electrify 
the Protestant world. We make this supposition, not as 
expecting to see it completely realized at present, but rather 
because the mere conception warms our hearts, and cannot 
but warm the heart of every Christian reader .” — New En<?~ 
lander , Vol. II, pp. 253, 254. 





























































